Elections

Before Voting

Election Day!

Counting the Vote

Meetings

Before Voting

The clerk keeps a list of everyone who lives in the community. Only people who are over eighteen and have lived in the community for six months can be on the list. A person must be on the list in order to vote.

Council decides when to have an election, but there must be at least one election every four years. The election should be held on a Saturday four years after the last election.

The clerk then puts up a poster telling everyone when the election will be held. The clerk has to give at least 28 days notice of the coming election.

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Election Day!

The most recent election for Mataranka Council was due on Saturday 1st May 2004. As at the closing date for nominations (12 Noon on Friday 16th April 2004), there were less nominations than the vacant positions required to be filled. Consequently the Chief Returning Officer declared those nominees to be duly elected as Members of Council on 16th April 2004. This action brought a slightly earlier close to the life of the fifth (5th) Mataranka Council than would have been the case had the election been contested. Council will take advice on the date for any proposed by-election over the next couple of months.

The Members of the sixth (6th) Mataranka Council declared as part of this process were all Members of the fifth (5th) Council. Those Members are Mark Joraslafsky, George Clapperton, Judy MacFarlane, Mick Land and Amanda Hand. The only retiring Member of the fifth (5th) Council was Geoff Christensen who did not seek re-election. Cr. Christensen leaves after a long involvement with Council spanning over ten years and he was a former President.

The clerk can ask people to help with the election, they are called Polling Officials.

The box where all the votes are placed is be checked to make sure its empty, then its locked tight so no one can try and cheat.

From 8.00am in the morning to 12.00pm in the afternoon, the polling booth is open so people can vote. Everyone on the electoral roll must vote. They come along and tell the clerk or official their name - which is then crossed off the election list.

The voter is given a ballot paper which has a list of candidates. The voter then places and 'X' next to the members they want to elect. Instead of just dropping the ballot paper in the box, the voter must fold the ballot paper and hand it to the clerk or polling official. The clerk/official then places the ballot paper in a sealed envelope and drops it into the box.

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Counting the Vote

After the polling place closes the clerk starts to count the votes. Its very important that the clerk have someone else present to make sure no one cheats, so each candidate may send a scrutineer to make sure everything is done properly.

Once the counting has finished the clerk must sign a document stating:

• Names of officials
• Names of scrutineers
• Number of votes for each candidate
• Number of invalid votes (those that people couldn't understand)
• Number of postal votes
• Number of formal votes

The clerk then goes and puts up a notice saying who won the election.

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Meetings

The Council should meet once a month, at a time which they agreed upon in the last meeting.

The meetings are open, which means that people may attend the meeting if they want to.

The President of the Council may call a special meeting. The President must give at least 2 days notice before calling a special meeting.

At any meeting the Council must keep a record of what happened. These are called the Minutes of the Meeting. To view the Minutes - please click here.

In order to make decisions a certain number of members must be present - this is called a quorum. A majority of members in office is needed to make a decision.

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